Pages

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Just Dew it!!

Did you see what I did there?

I combined Do with Sew to come up with Dew It!

And that is just what must be done when it comes to these little sweeties! You know you want to!

I tried two different methods

First I tried The Fold Method, where your white foundation is folded and pressed around a paper template. The link is to a wonderful tutorial from My Go-Go Life. Cute blog :)
I used this method only once, because...

Then I tried, and really liked The Sew Method. No template, No fidgety corners to press.
There is still a bit of folding and pressing...it is Cathedral Windows after all!

Both of these tutorials are easy to follow, and once you have made one, the next several you make come together super easy and quickly!

I thought that I would just add a couple little tips, little things I found myself doing, that were not mentioned in either tutorial. So here goes:

You have your 10' foundation square. You have folded it in half and sewn the two short sides.

Tip #1: To help the corners lay flat, I snipped the corner seam allowances open.

See that, on the far right of the photo?

So then, you have pressed the two seams open, and it looks like a flat square:

The next step is to sew that center seam, leaving a 2" hole for turning.

Tip #2. When I matched the two sewn seams in the center, I made sure to start my line of sewing to one side of the matched seams, to catch them in my line of sewing so that I didn't have to worry about them coming apart when pressed

So here you see the other part of the seam, leaving the 2' space open for turning.

Remember Tip #1 and snip the seam allowance open at the corners.

Here is what it looks like, all pressed and ready to turn.

And here it is turned, and pressed again.
And you don't ever sew the turning space closed, it just gets folded under

Now the fun part begins, as you add your colorful fabrics.

I proceeded pretty much just as the tutorials instructed from this point on.

One last little tip, that I do not have a photo for

Tip #3: When you have folded the corners of your turned, pressed square into the center, and have put your 4 1/2' square of print fabric in and go to stitch down the center corners, I started with my needle down in the very center, backspaced one or two stitches, just to catch one corner, and then forward, through the center, and one or two stitches to catch the opposite corner, then back to center, needle down and pivot the piece, and repeat the backwards and forward and back to center for the remaining two corners.

It took me longer to type all that than it takes to actually dewit!

Also, the button kind of gave me fits...use a longer needle than a quilting needle to get through the whole stuffed pincushion! And,

Tip#4: Do put a little button on the underside at the same time...it just adds a nice little finish, and makes it easier to sew the top button on, in my fumble fingered opinion :)

After making a couple pincushions, if you are inspired to make something more, like a cushion or a mini,

For the life of me, I cannot seem to find the tutorial I followed in making my mini!

I did not really set out to make a tutorial myself, so I don't have many photos of the process.

The pillow above, and my mini, are made with eight foundations that begin as 10" squares, which used just over 1/2 yard of white fabric.

You are able to get 4 10 inch squares per width of fabric, so you need 20 inches x WOF for the foundation squares.

Once you have your 8 "sewn-pressed-turned-pressed-folded-pressed" square foundations, sew 2 rows of four, using a pin to be sure your press lines match.

Backstitch at the start and stop points.

And when you go to sew the two rows together, backstitch at each junction between foundations.

Can you get the jist of it from this photo?

Then you will add your 4 1/2" squares of print and stitch down your centers.

For my mini I used the little orange gingham..

One thing to be mindful of in this step is to get the print snug into the "inside" corners...the "outside" corners will be in the seam allowance, for the most part.

learn from my mistakes :)

I measured the "centers" and cut squares 1/4" or so smaller for the windows. I did not measure exactly for each one, just got an average and cut them all at once...the process is very forgiving once you start sewing the little edges over.

**my apologies for the scant photos in this post. If you have any questions I will try my best to answer them in the comments :)
**edited to add: Yippee for sewing, not Yippee, the boys are gone! I just wanted to be clear on that, lol!

Wow Wee Sarah - so many helpful hints - thank you! There is nothing like having someone work out all the kinks for us, LOL. I pinned the pincushions, (hee hee) and the runner and both are definitely on my To Dew list!